Recipes, reviews and recreation with the Madhouse Family - one parent, three kids, two dogs, all bilingual !

Saturday, 8 June 2013

Kobots Starter Pack review

A few weeks ago, we received a Kobots Starter Pack to review. Actually, I say a few weeks but it's probably more like a couple of months ago - it's been sitting in the drawer waiting to be played with for a while now because the Madhouse Mini-testers weren't hugely inspired when they saw the pack, saying that it was "for boys" ! Well, today I managed to convince Sophie to have a proper look and see what she thought.

Kobots are being dubbed this summer's hottest, highly collectible playground craze. I will invite you to visit the official Kobots website at www.kobotsfederation.com to find out all the background story though because, to be honest, I can't get my head around it ! Here's what I understood, in a nutshell :

- There are 48 characters who battle against each other, spilt into 6 teams : Phenix, Knightimals, Star Raiders, Ultradozers, Silicon Copper and Ninjaris. Each team has a home and away kit, making an initial collection of 96 figurines to collect as part of the Kobots Federation.

- Each Kobot character has its own value and power levels and each figurine can be locked into its reversible base or "aeroslider" in two different ways.

- 'Krators', which are are sold with the figurines, are the ultimate tool used to fire the Kobots during battle. There are three types of Krators in different colours and thicknesses for each team to collect (green, red and blue). The thickness of the Krator influences how hard and how accurate you can fire your Kobots. If you’re a Kobots pro you’ll definitely be playing with the blue Krator but if you're anything like us, you'll just use pot luck !

Sophie started playing and explained the basic idea to me - you can make them slide (with the base facing down) or jump (with the base facing up) and you have to use different strategies to choose the strength, orientation, contact point and angle to get your kobot to go where you want it. It actually reminded me of a funked-up version of Tiddlywinks but I think I'm oversimplifying things !

Kobots are aimed at kids aged 4-9 years. I thought this was a bit on the low side but almost-4-year-old Pierre did manage to grasp the concept and have fun playing with them along with 11-year-old Sophie, although they do have small parts so you need to be careful.

The Kobots Starter Pack (RRP £3.99) includes a sticker album explaining the history of Kobots and details of all the teams, characters and games. There are also two gaming devices, a ‘Kobotron’ for practising both high and low shots, and a ‘Game Arena’ for challenging friends along with two figurines, two bases and two stickers.

For collectors wanting to build on their Kobots, a blind bag containing two figurines, two reversible bases, two stickers, one Krator and a mini game guide is available at a pocket money price of £1.50.

Brightly coloured collectible bags are also available for collectors to store and collect their favourite Kobots. A bag includes two figurines, two bases and two stickers. RRP £2.50